


come back down to my knees

by orphan_account



Series: life itself [1]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Abuse, Hispanic Character, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Morty is 15, POV Third Person, Pining, Rick is 20, Roadie Morty, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, The Flesh Curtains, Touring, Trans Character, Transphobia, Young Rick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 09:27:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14375898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Morty Sanchez had been lead to believe that all of the loving families in coming out stories were normal, that Beth and Jerry would wholeheartedly accept his coming out as transgender, but, as he usually is, Morty was wrong.Or, the one where Morty runs away and finds a home in the arms of a band he'd never heard of.





	come back down to my knees

The sound of the ticking of the clock was _horrifying._

This was ironic. Morty had spent years online reading coming out stories with happy ends, reading about accepting families and loving homes and the types of cookie cutter parents that were more concerned with their child's well-being than with their gender. Sadly, for Morty, that wasn't the case.

Morticia Sanchez, his legal name taunted him, had been born into an already declining family dynamic. Hell, his own mother didn't trust her relationship with his father enough to give Morty anything other than her maiden name. Beth Sanchez wasn't the worst in the family, of course, though she kept herself strapped to the husband she despised. The worst in the family came in the form of a jobless, useless, bigoted, sexist man who had little spine to work with for all the fights he had started. Jerry Smith.  
  
He had been the one who had instigated this fight.  
  
Morty leaned back against the plush of the cushions of the couch, idly picking at torn skin lining his nails, eyes stuck on the ceiling as the ticking clock taunted him. He wished he had his earbuds right now. He wished he had anything to block out the grating sound that was his parents fighting each other in the kitchen. Yes, he wasn't an idiot, he knew he shouldn't have come out. Not now. Not while Summer was planning her college future, not while Jerry's parents were in town, not while Beth was planning hopelessly for her father to return for a holiday.  
  
Rick hadn't been home since Morty was a baby, yet she had still planned.  
  
**Idiot.**  
  
Rick Sanchez was a deadbeat. That was all that Morty knew about him. Apparently, as an infant, he had been utterly enamored with the man that had showed up from his near permanent leave of absence from Beth's life to see him. There wasn't a trace of memory of him lingering in the remains of Morty's scattered thoughts tonight, though. All Morty could think about was getting out.  
  
Getting far away from here.  
  
“Morticia doesn’t know what she’s doing, Beth! Can’t you see that? Something’s wrong with her brain! We can’t encourage this, Bethany!”  
  
“Rick would have- “  
  
“Who cares what Rick would have done, Beth?! Rick hasn’t done _anything_ for you in years and- “  
  
Morty stopped listening. Rising to his feet, the young boy stalked up the stairs, ignoring Summer’s outstretched hand and the words dying on her lips. There was no consoling him. He needed no consolation to begin with. It was clear. This wasn’t a tear-jerking tale of a transgender boy coming out to his parents, this wasn’t something that would have a happy ending, and he didn’t know why he had expected it to be in the first place. Well… at least he had savings. That was a start. Flicking the lock on his door, he rifled through his clothing, tossing aside anything overly feminine. He was starting anew. He'd figure it out.  
  
Opening his backpack, he began to stuff it full of clothing and items with such sentimental value that he couldn’t bear to leave them behind. Morty’s father’s shouts, his legal name included, mocked him in the distance. Claims that he was too young to know, that he shouldn’t be jumping to such conclusions, that Beth should send him away to a permanent institution for help, mocked him. He was having second thoughts about leaving when he had ascended the staircase, but now...?  
  
Now he was certain. He was leaving this place.

Morty shivered as he stepped into the cold air, pulling his red coat around his shoulders, the fluff from the hood stopping the burn of the icy air against his ears. He could deal with being homeless for a while. It wasn’t as scary of a thought as he’d thought it’d be. The streets were comforting, in a way, leaving him with bittersweet memories of bike riding with his friends in the summer months. Memories he’d have to leave behind. He pulled his hood up, boots crunching the snow, walking towards the sidewalk.   
  
Which way should he go?

Morty closed his eyes, let out a breath, and started off walking west. He didn’t quite understand fully why Jerry was so against his coming out. The man was terrible, usually, but Morty didn’t think he’d go as far to reject his own son. The memories of his father, the sweet ones, crawled up his throat and suffocated him. He had trusted that man, once. He had loved him. He had been comforted by him.  
  
Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes that he’d blame on the cold if he was asked. Morty was young then. He hadn’t been aware of the hell that would find him as he grew older, as his eyes opened to all of the things that were wrong in his household, and the thought of going back to that simpler time felt warm. It was warmer, undoubtedly, than the snow that hit his tear stained face as he walked along the street. Not a single person was outside, no one walking, each one of the houses curtains drawn shut.  
  
It was like they were ashamed of him too.  
  
The way Jerry had looked at Morty still haunted him, the disgust in his eyes bright and obvious, the fight that came from his lips terrifying and reducing Morty to tears in minutes. He had thought he’d understand. He had thought Jerry would support him. His expectations were proven wrong, of course, but what he hadn’t expected, not in a million years, was Jerry’s fist flying towards his face. Those accusatory words were something Morty could handle. The darkening bruise on his face was not.  
  
Shaking the thought from his mind, the teenager kept walking, leaning down and scooping snow into his hand to press against his aching cheek. His other hand went to his pocket, taking his phone out, eyes glancing over the time before he shoved it away again. The ten minutes had passed. Jerry and Beth would know he was gone by now.  
  
He turned right.  
  
It could’ve been hours of Morty walking like that, numb both in body and mind, through the suburbs before he reached such a cold that he knew he’d had to settle for a moment, to warm up. Where wouldn’t they find him? His eyes shot around the area, his coat sleeve wiping at his damp skin, as he tried to find a place to hide out. That was when he saw it. His haven. It was a run-down bar, utterly unappealing to most, a place that would let a homeless kid sit for a minute. He began to run, leaving footprints behind him that he wasn’t concerned with, opening the door and panting for breath as he looked around the place.  
  
Booths that were unattended called out to him, beckoning him to rest, and his feet complied. He walked to the seat, sitting his backpack down, curling up in the corned of the booth and letting his eyes fall shut as he tried to relax. The owner didn’t mind his presence, he’d assumed, as he had just continued setting up for whatever shitty band would be playing the venue tonight.   
  
Only seconds had passed before Morty was asleep.  
  
Even in his dreams, he was haunted by the words Jerry had slung at him, the threats that he’d be kicked out onto the streets for his disgusting behavior still rang in his mind clearly. It was haunting. Not in a good way, either. It wasn’t haunting like you’d describe a musical piece that had struck you deeply, no, it was haunting like the memories of a mistake you had made that’s repercussions would follow you through the rest of your natural life.  
  
Well, that was what it was.  
  
Lucky for him, he was startled from his fitful slumber by the sound of a guitar buzzing through an amp. He rubbed at his eyes, sitting up a bit, glancing over at the causer of the noise that had awoken him. Pretty. He was in his twenties, if Morty had to guess, Hispanic, and looked to be much too fashionable for this place. Established. He leaned to the side, peeking around the booth, trying to get his unfocused eyes to take in the name of the band.  
  
The Fl-  
  
A hand was on his shoulder. A squeak tore from Morty’s lips as he scuttled back in his seat, eyes flying to the person that had touched him. Oh- It was him again. How hadn’t Morty noticed him approaching…? It was the guitarist. For some reason Morty couldn’t make out the words he was saying, too focused on how good the dark haired man looked, focused on his chest exposed through that shirt, focused on every part of him.  
  
There was a gentle air around him, something Morty simply couldn’t ignore, the way the other’s mouth moved drawing him in. Comforting. He shouldn’t, but he felt utterly safe around the taller. He felt like he had no worries in the world to focus on other than whatever the guitarist had approached him for. Was that why he was in a band? Was it this way of calming people, of drawing them in, that made them so-  
  
“Kid, my eyes are up here.”  
  
Morty quickly apologized to the older, bruised and pale face flushed, his hands rubbing at his eyes once more as he gave the guitarist his full attention.  


“My name’s Ricardo Sanchez, and I could use a little help over here settin’ up, and with some other stuff. You’re a,” The guitarist, Ricardo, started looking him up and down, “Morty, right?”  
  
Ricardo. Rick. Rick Sanchez. He had said, essentially, that his name was Rick Sanchez. Morty’s ears rang as he looked over him a few more times, taking him in, confused. This wasn’t the Rick in the photographs, this wasn’t who Beth had been waiting for, and this most certainly was not his grandfather… but he had known his name. He had known his name was Morty. He had said he was ‘a Morty’. Was there more than one of him-?!  
  
Wait.  
  
A Morty. This person hadn’t called him ‘Morticia’. Ricardo was the first person, in his entire life, to call him the name he had wanted to be called. Taking a deep breath, sitting his worries aside, Morty slid out of the both and rose to his feet. He nodded his head a few times, agreeing to the task at hand, rocking back and forth nervously on his heels and ignoring the worry that presented itself in Ricardo’s eyes after seeing his bruise.  
  
“Yeah! Yeah, my name’s- it’s Morty. Uh- What do you need help with?”  
  
The teen shrugged his coat from his shoulders, tossing it aside, following Ricardo as he made his way to the set. The first thing tossed at him was a tambourine. Blind panic raced through the kid’s mind, his lips parting to speak but words not coming out, the instrument heavy in his hands. Fuck. Ricardo wanted him to use this, didn’t he? To play?  
  
“I-I-I-I don’t- I- You know I don’t know how to- “  
  
Ricardo laughed, a sweet and calming noise, his head shaking as he went on to explain the basics of using a tambourine to Morty. Again, and again, the man assured him that this gig wasn’t very important. It was the first on their tour, and it wasn’t going to be very eventful, so it was okay if Morty messed up.   
  
“… You’ll do great, kid, but, uh- I noticed your bag. If you need a ride out of here? We can take you.”  
  
They’d take him.  
  
The thought of going on tour with someone like Ricardo frightened him. His mother had always warned him when he was younger of the danger that strangers brought beside them. There were a lot of lovely people in the world, people who would clothe and feed him where his parents wouldn’t anymore, but there were also a lot of bad people. Then, of course, there was the people where the lines blurred.

  
Ricardo was one of them.  
  
Morty was sure he wasn’t concretely good or bad. He drew him in with alcohol stained breath and a slur in his pretty voice, with good looks and a comforting feeling he couldn’t shake off of himself, and that had to be a sin. Ricardo Sanchez himself had to be a fucking sin, because Morty was already nodding his head, and he was under his spell. Hazy, drunk, on the idea of getting out of here with someone as comforting and beautiful as Rick was. He didn’t care if he knew him. Anything would be better than crawling home and to his parents, so when the band’s t-shirt was tossed to him?  
  
He caught it with a bright grin and wide eyes.  
  
**_“I’m in.”_**


End file.
